There is a common problem in automotive dealerships (i.e. automotive retail sales establishments) concerning mis-use of dealers' license tags or plates. Dealers' tags are intended primarily for use on demonstrator vehicles used by the dealership to provide test drives for prospective customers. All too often, however, dealers' tags are used by dealership salesmen for their personal vehicles or vehicles belonging to friends or family of the salesmen. The problem presented by this tag mis-use is two-fold. First, tags are often unavailble when needed for their intended use, namely to put onto a demonstrator vehicle for a customer test drive, and therefore a potential sale is very likely lost. Second, the dealership is subjected to a considerable potential liability, both civil (in the event an unauthorized vehicle is involved in an accident) and criminal (by virtue of violation of local statutes for mis-use of specially issued dealership tags). Superficially simple solutions, such as placing all dealership tags in charge of the sales manager, have proved to be impractical since it is likely that the sales manager may be with a customer and unavailable to break away to accommodate a salesman in need of a tag for a test drive.